First, a warning: I have officially passed the point of objectivity for this series. You know you’ve passed that point when you no longer care what happens in a book series as long as you get to spend more time in its world hanging out with its characters. This isn’t a place I get to easily, but once I’m there, I never ever leave. Love, it is irrational.
With that said, oh boy, this book was awesome.
In retrospect, one of my favorite things about each book in the series is how different each one of them are to each other. They’re all essentially told with the same style and tone, but Corey* wastes no time languishing in story plots. His characters evolve. Things in his world change, most often in ways that are terrifying and wonderful, in the most basic sense of the word: full-of-wonder. There’s always a moment in each book that Things Change Forever. And in this one, that thing is probably the biggest thing of them all, and it’s even more exhilarating because if you’ve read the four books prior to this one, you are likely very attached emotionally to the characters experiencing these world-changing events.
*A penname for writing duo Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck.
This book also brings us POVs from all the four main crew members of the Rocinante for the very first time. We’ve always had Holden in there, but now we get Naomi, Alex, and Amos up in there, too. And with their POVs comes much needed backstory on all of them, especially Naomi. Hoooooo, Naomi. By the end of the first chapter, you know what’s coming in terms of what I’m about to spoil, so I’m not really counting it as spoilers. The Roci is so beat up from her years of space travel, and particularly her last voyage through the proto-molecule gate, she’s going to need serious revamping and repairs. It’s going to take weeks, months. So the crew split up for some “shore leave.” Amos receives news that his foster mother has died on Earth, so he takes off to take care of things. Alex follows his lead and heads home to Mars, and Naomi heads back to Ceres station after a mysterious message from a man from her past. So, when the trademark Horrific Thing happens, we are in a unique position to get lots of different viewpoints on it, and of course, Holden and Co. are right smack dab in the middle of everything.
I loved this book. I love this crew. It was so satisfying. It was terrifying and horrible and I never wanted to stop listening to it. It makes me want to re-read the first two books to see if I will love them more now. It makes me want book six* PRONTO.
*If you decide to start reading this series, know you are in safe hands. They release a new book every year like clockwork.
So, bottom line, this book was awesome, but you maybe can’t trust my opinion because love is irrational. But you probably should anyway because I have excellent taste.
